Sandra Belloni — Complete eBook

shuddered to think that he had virtually almost engaged
himself to this girl. Or, had he? Was his
honour bound? Distance appeared to answer the
question favourably. There was safety in being
distant from her. She possessed an incomprehensible
attractiveness. She was at once powerful and
pitiable: so that while he feared her, and was
running from her spell, he said, from time to time,
“Poor little thing!” and deeply hoped
she would not be unhappy.

A showman once (a novice in his art, or ambitious
beyond the mark), after a successful exhibition of
his dolls, handed them to the company, with the observation,
“satisfy yourselves, ladies and gentlemen.”
The latter, having satisfied themselves that the capacity
of the lower limbs was extraordinary, returned them,
disenchanted. That showman did ill. But I
am not imitating him. I do not wait till after
the performance, when it is too late to revive illusion.
To avoid having to drop the curtain, I choose to explain
an act on which the story hinges, while it is advancing:
which is, in truth, an impulse of character. Instead
of his being more of a puppet, this hero is less wooden
than he was. Certainly I am much more in awe
of him.

CHAPTER XIV

Mr. Pole was one of those men whose characters are
read off at a glance. He was neat, insignificant,
and nervously cheerful; with the eyes of a bird, that
let you into no interior. His friends knew him
thoroughly. His daughters were never in doubt
about him. At the period of the purchase of Brookfield
he had been excitable and feverish, but that was ascribed
to the projected change in his habits, and the stern
necessity for an occasional family intercommunication
on the subject of money. He had a remarkable
shyness of this theme, and reversed its general treatment;
for he would pay, but would not talk of it. If
it had to be discussed with the ladies, he puffed,
and blinked, and looked so much like a culprit that,
though they rather admired him for what seemed to them
the germ of a sense delicate above his condition,
they would have said of any man they had not known
so perfectly, that he had painful reasons for wishing
to avoid it. Now that they spoke to him of Besworth,
assuring him that they were serious in their desire
to change their residence, the fit of shyness was
manifested, first in outrageous praise of Brookfield,
which was speedily and inexplicably followed by a
sort of implied assent to the proposition to depart
from it. For Besworth displayed numerous advantages
over Brookfield, and to contest one was to plunge headlong
into the money question. He ventured to ask his
daughters what good they expected from the change.
They replied that it was simply this: that one
might live fifty years at Brookfield and not get such
a circle as in two might be established at Besworth.
They were restricted. They had gathering friends,
and no means of bringing them together. And the
beauty of the site of Besworth made them enthusiastic.